The Tarantula Nebula has been photographed by several observatories in the past, but new images captured by the James Webb Telescope give us a clearer, sharper view of the star-forming region. Also known as 30 Doradus, the Tarantula Nebula is the largest and brightest star-forming region among the galaxies near our own, making it a favorite subject for scientists studying star formation. 

Astronomers used three of Webb's infrared instruments to image the Tarantula Nebula. When viewed using Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), you'll see the silky filaments that earned the nebula its name surrounding a cluster of massive young stars sparkling blue in the center of the image above. According to NASA, tens of thousands of these young stars have never been seen before as they were concealed by cosmic dust. Stellar winds and radiation from these young stars had hollowed out the center of the nebula, which is bound to keep shifting and changing shape. The filaments that surround them are hiding even more protostars, after all, and they'll emerge to join the other stars at the center as they blow away the gas and dust obscuring them from our view. 

In fact, Webb's Near-Infrared Spectrograph has observed one such star that has started emerging from behind its dusty veil. NASA says the star's activity wouldn't have been revealed without Webb's high-resolution spectra at infrared wavelengths. The astronomers also used Webb's Mid-infrared Instrument (MIRI) to view the nebula in longer infrared wavelengths and captured an image quite different from the one captured by NIRCam. This time, the young stars at the center of the nebula fade in the background, while the cooler gas and dust surrounding them glow and take the spotlight, as you can see below.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team

As NASA explains, the Tarantula Nebula is of special interest to scientists studying star formation, because it has a chemical composition similar to the star forming regions during the universe's "cosmic noon." That's the period in time when the universe was only a couple of billion years old and when star formation was at its peak. In our own galaxy, there are no regions producing new stars at a similarly furious pace. Also, star forming regions in the Milky Way have a different composition. By focusing the Webb Telescope on the Tarantula Nebula, scientists now have images to compare against deep observations of much distant galaxies from the actual cosmic noon, which could help them better understand the early years of the universe.

Brazil's Ministry of Justice has issued an order banning Apple from selling iPhones that don't come with chargers in the country. It has also slapped the tech giant with a fine of 12.275 million Brazilian reals ($2.38 million) and has ordered the cancelation of the iPhone 12's registration with the country's national telecoms agency Anatel. Apple stopped bundling chargers with its mobile devices back in 2020 with the release of the iPhone 12, citing environmental concerns.

The company said that it was shipping devices without power adapters to reduce the manufacturing processes needed for each unit. In its 2021 Environmental Progress Report, Apple claimed the decision to stop bundling chargers will save 861,000 tons of copper, zinc and tin. Plus, the ability to ship devices more efficiently — shipping pallets were able to carry up to 70 percent more iPhone 12 boxes — would help reduce the company's carbon dioxide emissions. 

Brazilian authorities didn't buy Apple's explanations and argued that the tech giant could have taken other measures to help the environment, such as adding USB-C charging support to its iPhones. Selling devices without a power adapter is a "deliberate discriminatory practice against consumers," authorities have decided. 

This decision comes after the ministry wrapped up its investigation that started in December. The Brazilian state of São Paulo also previously fined Apple 10.55 million reals ($1.92 million at the time) for selling iPhones without a charger. 

Apple has yet to pull its newer iPhones from its Brazilian online store, but it told Reuters that it would continue to work with authorities to "resolve their concerns." A spokesperson also told the news organization that Apple will appeal the ministry's decision. "We have already won several court rulings in Brazil on this matter and we are confident that our customers are aware of the various options for charging and connecting their devices," they said. It's worth noting that Samsung worked with São Paulo authorities to bundle Samsung Galaxy S21 pre-orders with a gift charger. Whether the tech giant will do the same for its next iPhone, which is expected to be unveiled later today, remains to be seen.

Sony is losing one of the main architects behind its PlayStation consoles. The company has confirmed to Bloomberg News that Masayasu Ito, who led the development of the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5, is leaving Sony on October 1st. Ito has been with Sony for 36 years, joining the company way back in 1986 and starting with the development of in-car audio equipment those first years. 

He transferred to the console division in 2000, and he's had a hand in developing Sony's PlayStation devices since then, including the PS Portable and the PS4 Pro. He eventually became the Executive Vice President of Hardware Engineering and Operation and representative director of Sony Interactive Entertainment. While Sony didn't elaborate on why Ito is leaving in its announcement, it told Bloomberg that the 60-year-old executive is retiring.

Over the past couple of decades, he represented Sony in interviews and other public appearances concerning the PlayStation. He talked to Engadget about the PlayStation Eye camera for the PS4 back in 2013 and told us in the same year that the company was releasing the Vita TV outside Japan. He was also the one who announced that Project Morpheus would be known as the PlayStation VR at Tokyo Game Show back in 2015.

Two years ago, Ito posted a teardown of the PS5 on the PlayStation blog. He said Sony had to make a "generational leap in terms of performance" for its next console generation and had to ensure that all elements of the device work together. it had to find ways to reduce the console's the noise level, for instance, and increase its cooling capacity to be able to prevent its components from overheating. "In this teardown video of the PS5 console, you will be able to see how we have thoughtfully integrated our technology into this console," he wrote.

One of the first images taken by the James Webb Telescope that was released by NASA was the "sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date." It's a wondrous photo showing a detailed cluster of galaxies. It's also currently being used by bad actors to infect systems with malware. Security analytics platform Securonix has identified a new malware campaign that uses the image, and the company is calling it the GO#WEBBFUSCATOR.

The attack starts with a phishing email containing a Microsoft Office attachment. Hidden within the document's metadata is a URL that downloads a file with a script, which runs if certain Word macros are enabled. That, in turn, downloads a copy of Webb’s First Deep Field photo (pictured above) that contains as a malicious code masquerading as a certificate. In its report about the campaign, the company said all anti-virus programs were unable to detect the malicious code in the image.

Securonix VP Augusto Barros told Popular Science that there are a couple of possible reasons why the bad actors chose to use the popular James Webb photo. One is that the high-resolution images NASA had released come in massive file sizes and can evade suspicion in that regard. Also, even if an anti-malware program flags it, reviewers might pass it over since it's been widely shared online in the past couple of months. 

Another interesting thing of note about the campaign is that it uses Golang, Google’s open-source programming language, for its malware. Securonix says Golang-based malware are rising in popularity, because they have flexible cross-platform support and are more difficult to analyze and reverse engineer than malware based on other programming languages. Like other malware campaign that starts with a phishing email, though, the best way to avoid being a victim of this attack is to avoid downloading attachments from untrusted sources.

Around 120,000 taxpayers who filed a Form 990-T will be hearing from the IRS in the coming weeks, telling them that the agency inadvertently exposed their information on its website. Exempted organizations, including charities and religious groups, with unrelated business income are required to file Form 990-T. As The Wall Street Journal notes, though, people with individual retirement accounts invested in assets that generate income, such as real estate, are also required to file the form. Filings by exempted organizations are supposed to be public, but those by private individuals aren't.

The agency said the issue stemmed from a human cording error last year when Form 990-T became available for electronic filing. As you can guess, the error led to the bundling of non-public data with public data, which were all made available for download. It wasn't until these past weeks that an employee discovered the issue and triggered an investigation that eventually led to the removal of the data that shouldn't have been public in the first place.

In its letter, the IRS said the leaked data included individual names and business contact information. Affected taxpayers' Social Security numbers, individual income details and other information that could impact their credit weren't made public. The Journal, which was able to download some of the data before it was removed, said it included people's income within their IRAs, as well.

Even though it has already removed the leaked data, the IRS is still reviewing the situation. The Treasury Department's Anna Canfield Roth also said that the agency "has instructed the IRS to conduct a prompt review of its practices to ensure necessary protections are in place to prevent unauthorized data disclosures."

Japan has a high level of adoption when it comes to advanced technologies and is a world leader in various areas, such as robotics. However, it's also resistant to certain facets of modernization and tend to stick to old-fashioned solutions — fax machines, for instance, are still widely used. And apparently, so are floppy disks. The country's newly appointed Minister of Digital Affairs, Taro Kono, has tweeted that he's declaring "a war on floppy disks."

Apparently, there are still around 1,900 government procedures in Japan that require the use of disks, including floppy disks, CDs and MiniDiscs, to submit forms and applications. "Where does one even buy a floppy disk these days?" he asked during a news conference. Indeed, the younger generation might not know what any of those look like anymore. Kono said his agency will work on amending regulations that require their use, so people can submit forms and applications online instead.

The US government had been using floppy disks as recently as 2019, as well, and it was to receive nuclear launch orders from the President. It wasn't until that year that the government transitioned to a "highly-secure solid state digital storage solution."

Kono doesn't intend to stop with floppy disks either and has announced his plans to phase out the use of more outdated technologies. "I'm looking to get rid of the fax machine, and I still plan to do that," he said. The minister doesn't have to worry about ending pager services, at least: The last pager provider in the country closed up shop a mere three years ago in September 2019.

Police and law enforcement agencies, even in small areas with fewer than 100,000 residents, have been using a low-cost phone tracking tool called Fog Reveal, according to AP and the EFF. AP has published a report detailing authorities' use of the tool since at least 2018 for various investigations, including to track murder suspects and potential participants in the January 6th Capitol riot. The tool, sold by Virginia company Fog Data Science LLC, doesn't need a warrant and can be accessed instantly. To get geofence data, authorities usually have to issue a warrant to companies like Google and Apple, and it could take weeks for them to get the information they need. 

Fog Reveal, AP explains, uses advertising identification numbers, which are unique IDs assigned to each mobile device, to track people. It gets its information from aggregators that collect data from apps that serve targeted ads based on a user's location and interest, such as as Waze and Starbucks. Both the coffeehouse chain and the Google subsidiary denied explicitly giving their partners permission to share data with Fog Reveal. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation obtained access to documents about Fog through Freedom of Information Act requests, which it then shared with AP. EFF special adviser, Bennett Cyphers, describes the tool as "sort of a mass surveillance program on a budget." Its prices reportedly start at only $7,500 a year, and some agencies even share access with other nearby departments to bring costs down further. Looking at data from GovSpend, which monitors government spending, AP found that Fog managed to sell around 40 contracts to nearly two dozen agencies. Authorities have already used it to search hundreds of records from 250 million devices. 

While Fog Reveal only tracks people using their advertising IDs that aren't connected with their names, authorities are able to use its data to establish "patterns-of-life" analyses. They can, for instance, establish that a specific ad ID belongs to a person who typically passes by a Starbucks from home on the way to work. Further, Fog gives authorities access to the movements of an ad ID going back to at least 180 days. Fog managing partner Matthew Broderick even recently admitted that the tool "has a three year reach back."

Authorities used the tool to varying degrees of success over the past years. Washington County prosecutor Kevin Metcalf said he has previously used Fog without a warrant for circumstances that required immediate action, such as to find missing children and to solve homicide cases. He said about privacy concerns surrounding Fog's use: "I think people are going to have to make a decision on whether we want all this free technology, we want all this free stuff, we want all the selfies. But we can't have that and at the same time say, 'I'm a private person, so you can't look at any of that."

The EFF, of course, doesn't share his sentiment. It called Fog "a powerfully invasive tool" and is encouraging people to disable ad ID tracking on their phones. 

Meta is axing Facebook's Nextdoor-like product called Neighborhoods before it even becomes available to most users. The social network started offering it to select users in Canada back in 2020, touting it as a dedicated space where people can interact with their local communities. It expanded its tests last year and rolled out access to various communities across Canada and the US. Based on the screenshot of a post written by a Meta product manager and obtained by social media consultant Matt Navarra, the company is ending its test of Neighborhoods on October 1st. It will no longer be available after that date.

Groups revolving around local communities aren't new or rare on the website, but Neighborhoods spaces come with special features. They allow users to create separate profiles where they can limit their public information if they don't want people nearby to know too much about them. Users can also find groups for specific activities that are populated with locals through the Neighborhoods tab. 

The product manager didn't mention why Meta is shutting down Neighborhoods in their announcement. According to TechCrunch, though, the company said it originally invested in the project when it saw how popular Nextdoor was. However, it reportedly decided that the best thing to do for this particular area is to let people form their own local communities using the website's existing Groups feature.

Another possible explanation is that Meta is shutting down the project as part of its cost-cutting efforts. It also recently announced that it's closing the standalone Facebook Gaming app in what could be a move to help the company survive what Mark Zuckerberg calls "one of the worst downturns [it has seen] in recent history."

Back in May, NASA reported that the Voyager 1 space probe was sending back jumbled or inaccurate telemetry data. The probe itself seemed to be in good shape, with a signal that's still strong enough to beam back information, and nothing was triggering its fault protection systems that would put it in "safe mode." According to NASA, the Voyager team has not only figured the problem out since then — it has also solved the issue.

Turns out we're getting jumbled data here on Earth, because the probe's attitude articulation and control system (AACS) has been sending back information through an onboard computer that had stopped working years ago. The computer was corrupting the data before it even went out. Voyager project manager Suzanne Dodd said that when her team suspected that this was the issue, they implemented a low-risk fix: They commanded the AACS to send its data through the probe's working computer again.

While the engineers have fixed the glitch, they've yet to figure out why the AACS started routing information through the old computer in the first place. They believe it was triggered by a faulty command by another onboard computer, which was itself triggered by an underlying issue with the spacecraft. Voyager's engineers will keep looking for the problem's root case, NASA said, but they don't think it will have a huge effect on the spacecraft's operations.

Voyager 1 has been operational for almost 45 years and had reached interstellar space in 2012. NASA expects it to continue being able to run at least one science instrument until 2025, after which it will keep drifting away from our solar system until it loses contact with NASA's Deep Space Network. 

When you search for "Philips Hue" on your phone's app store, a few options will pop out. Now, Signify has announced that it's making things a bit less confusing by merging the Philips Hue sync app into the main Hue app sometime in the fourth quarter. The Philips Hue sync app controls the ecosystem's sync box, which you can use to connect four devices to your setup via HDMI. That box is what you need if, say, you want to sync your smart lights with what's playing on your TV. 

With the sync app's integration, you can set up the sync box, as well as enable features such as voice control for it, within the main Hue app. Signify said it will phase out the standalone sync app, though it didn't say when exactly it would be pulled out from app stores.

In addition to announcing the applications' merging, Signify has also added a handful of new smart lighting products to its Philips Hue lineup. The new Lightguide bulbs have a distinct inner tube that can diffuse light in any color. They will be available in thee different shapes, namely large globe, ellipsis and triangular, and can be sold with a black or white fabric-wrapped cord and holder. Not including the cords, the bulbs will be available in the fourth quarter of 2022 for prices starting at £75 (US$87). 

Signify has also launched a new vintage-style Philips Hue Filament candle bulb that's capable of diffusing dimmable warm-to-cool white light, as well as a new gradient lightstrip for PC that will be available on September 13th in the UK for prices starting at £130 (US$151). Speaking of PC lighting, the company has teamed up with Corsair to give you a way to sync the lighting on your peripherals with your Hue lights via the Corsair iCUE software. Finally, in the fourth quarter of this year, the company will roll out the capability to sync your smart lights with songs playing out of a Samsung Galaxy smartphone or tablet. The Music Sync feature will be available through a future update for Samsung's SmartThings app.

Signify